~Noah has a belated birthday party in March.~

I am Blessed to have many Dear friends!  One dear friend...whom I never even knew I had until recently was Amy!  She reads my blog and a few weeks ago left me the NICEST comment.

We have been emailing back and forth "getting acquainted," and the other day she asked for my mailing address.
You can imagine my SURPRISE when I got her package and it contained these 6 yummy Chocolate candy bars, and a $25.00 gift card to Starbucks!  I LOVE SURPRISES...so this made my WEEK!  Thank you, Sweet Amy!  Dear Jesus, Please BLESS Amy! :-) I told her my sweetheart is coming home, and we'll go on a date to Starbucks! :-)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Megan and her family were in town visiting from out west.  Not knowing that I'd get to spend time with her at Noah's birthday party, I asked her if they wanted to run to McD's after church on Wednesday night to get a quick ice cream together.  We did that, and it was a fun time!

Our Noah had a birthday in January, and he REALLY wanted his friends to come over and play.  But if you'll remember, since we had just arrived back to the U.S.A. late Dec. 18th, and then had Christmas, in January, I was still unpacking 23 suitcases and trying to get organized.
So, I told Noah that we'd have his friends over, but it would have to happen in March or April.
Jesus helped us and we had his party last Thursday.
Noah was so DISAPPOINTED because it was RAINING!!!  One of the main things he wanted to do with his friends was SWING on our big tree swing out back. :-(
You'll have to look at these pics to see what all they did at his party! :-)

~Playing the game Twisters~

 ~I asked Noah what dessert he wanted, and he wanted DIRT DESSERT!
So, I walked around Kroger PRAYING that Jesus would inspire me on WHAT to put the dirt dessert in, and how to decorate.
I knew I was going to keep it SIMPLE, just needed some ideas from Jesus.  :-)  The first 2 buckets I picked up to put the dirt dessert in, were cute metal buckets with pastel stripes on them.  I was trying to figure out how to make those buckets look MANLY.  :-)  (and later I found out that they would have cost me nearly $9.00 EACH.  NO THANKS!)
THANKFULLY, Jesus helped me to see these green and blue plastic Easter buckets for $1.49 a piece.
So, I bought 6 to use for our kids' Easter baskets on Easter...and then used them for Noah's dirt dessert, to put chips in, and to put the party favors in as well.~

 ~Sweet Laura helped me by bringing this yummy veggie tray over!!~

 ~Noah's gifts.  He also got a card and some cash, but I didn't know about it till later. (The pink tissue paper was ON PURPOSE.  His friends thought it would be fun to put PINK CAMOUFLAGE PAPER in Noah's gift as a joke! :-)~

 ~Megan, Kelly, and I.~
Megan and her family were in visiting from out west, so she and her boys were able to come.

 ~Deanna sent chips that were a big help.~

 ~The party favors.~

 ~Dirt Dessert.~

 ~I got a coupon in the mail for 40% off Papa Johns pizza (which is one of our favorites.)
But, you had to order it on line, and I had NO extra minutes!
So, Dear Laura ordered the pizza for me, and went and picked it up.  THANK YOU, LAURA!
That was so SWEET of Jesus to send me that coupon, which gave me 6 EXTRA Large pizzas for around the price one would normally pay for 3 or 4 Large pizzas.  :-) ~

 ~Some hungry boys....~

 ~Some Happy boys~

 ~Some Dear Boys.~

 ~The kids and I had been thinking of ANY Inside Activity to keep those boys busy.  So, I picked up a hula hoop to play a game we had learned.  

Here's Abigail "trying to do the hula hoop!"  

Sometimes I think we FEEL like that this pic of Abigail "doing the hula hoop" could represent us TRYING TO DO LIFE!  :-)

We only CAN DO LIFE...WITH GOD'S HELP!! :-)

 ~Normally girls don't come to boy's parties, but this time the sisters were invited too.  There were 18 of us in all. ~

 ~We had an inside egg hunt, played Twisters, and had more inside activities planned since it was raining outside!
BUT THEN, Noah came to me and told me that his friends R.E.A.L.L.Y. wanted to go out side in the MUD and swing!
I told him that it was FINE with me, if the other mothers didn't care.
They said they didn't mind and so off the boys went to go SLIDING, SWINGING, AND PLAYING in the mud!!!

 ~They even played a game of MUD HOCKEY! :-)
I'm sure these mothers will think TWICE before they let their boys come back to another one of Noah's parties.  Ha! :-)  ~

 ~And then while we were out front saying our goodbyes....ABIGAIL was inside PLAYING in the "DIRT"...AS WELL...THE DIRT DESSERT!  UGH!

Noah had a blast and keeps thanking me for having his party! :-)

We are COUNTING the minutes till our sweet Daddy and Kimberly get back from Colombia.  Please pray for safe travels for them.
~HEATHER~